Obey ordinances on campaign sign placement

Staff Report
•
Apr 12, 2013 at 9:57 AM

It’s important that candidates and their supporters know exactly where campaign signs can be placed. With the campaign for Johnson City’s April 23 election now in full bloom, political signs are popping up in places where they shouldn’t be.

Candidates should take care to place their signs in approved areas. Otherwise, their campaign investments might be carted off to a municipal garage or to the landfill.

Officials in Johnson City are on the lookout for illegally placed campaign signs. Johnson City, like Elizabethton and a number of other cities in the area, have adopted ordinances to deal with signs of all types. Even so, some misguided candidates and their supporters insist on placing campaign signs in areas where they are not allowed, such as on school property, public right-of-ways and utility poles.

Many of these signs are collected by public works crews. Some signs are removed by residents and business owners who do not want them on their property.

Candidates should remember:

Signs are not allowed on public property such as schools.

Signs are not allowed on or over the public right-of-way. Utility poles and sidewalks mark right-of-way boundaries.

Any signs between the sidewalk and street curb or between utility poles and street curbs will be removed.

Signs may not be posted on controlled-access roads, such as Interstate 26 or State of Franklin Road; inside fenced boundary areas of roadways; or at intersections.

Signs may not be posted on telephone, power or streetlight poles.

Vehicles or trailers parked on a right-of-way for the primary purpose of displaying political signage are prohibited.

Signs are not allowed in medians between traffic lanes, such as the University Parkway median.

And candidates should remember to collect their signs when the election is over. No one wants to see a weathered political sign blighting the landscape.